Fisher-Price makes programming toy to teach  computer programming to 3 to 6-year-olds


Their new toy, called the caterpillar, teaches coding basics to preschoolers. The company will debut its $50 Think & Learn Code-a-Pillar tonight at Pepcom's Digital Experience, a pre-CES media event, though the toy won't be available to buy until this summer. Instead of getting not-yet-potty-trained kids to code with a screen and keyboard, this plastic caterpillar uses more subtle tactics: it teaches the basics of coding, like sequencing and programming, with segments of the caterpillar's body. Each of these eight segments is labeled with different symbols and colors. Kids put them together, attach them to the caterpillar's smiling, blinky-eyed, motorized head, and press a button to get the whole toy to move.


From my past three years experience I truly believe this will work. I'm actually trying to see if I can start teaching students as young as third-grade how to program, do 3D animation, and also design and programmed their own video games. This includes the basic skills needed, going to advanced skills in computer programming.


And I use the animation and videogame to motivate them to learn how to program and improve their skills each week. If not then their video game will not play they went the way they want it to


http://www.computergraphics.com/


http://www.theverge.com/2016/1/5/10716994/fisher-price-thing-and-learn-code-a-pillar-toy-ces-2016

7th grader - Donovan's Soccer Video Games

He built his own soccer field and lined it, build his own stadium, soccer goals stands etc.   I brought in a third person character controller for him and set the camera up behind him so that we could play the game and see him move and kick goals/

So he went from Autodesk Maya, and then bringing his models into Unity3D, and then putting them in his game adding physics and gravity to his own video game.  He then  was able to publish his game and send it to other students and a bunch of them were playing at last week

We are now going to have our seventh and eighth graders concentrate more on the programming end of the game so they can get a start working on their computer programming skills. This will prepare them for a career in computer science

And my class is now working on in teams and making their own video games. That makes each student has a different part of the game to design and implement

Create my own to terrain in Unity3D-  for my middle school students two now do the same

We are now going to start using Unity3D to create our own video games.   it is incredibly easy and powerful as you can see from the pictures. It only took about 12 minutes to create this island with mountains, trees, grass.

I have also figured out how to bring our 3D models made in Maya so we can really start to design and build I would video games

How to create a spinning logo that's
on fire in Autodesk Maya

I created this spinning logo yesterday using Autodesk Maya. I use their :

• Text
• Rotation
• And dynamics – gravity - Active objects
• And fire

My seventh-grade students will be working on spinning logos this next week to finish up our 10 weeks of school.  They have done incredible work in their 3D models and also 3D animations, and have shown that students in middle school can be learning and mastering high-end computer packages.  

They are well on their way preparing themselves for the high thing exciting jobs in 3-D animation and modeling in soon video game programming and also computer science.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXThag16rqmYchqU1FauOUA

3D Printing from Makerbot Arrived! 

I received my 3D Makerbot printer Friday and I cannot wait till it up and use it

I am going to start with Autodesk Maya in my Middle School math class and 3D animation classes.   We are going to design 3D models and then use the 3D printer to print them.

3D animation is based on vectors ( small space and 3D space ). 3D Animation  uses vector algebra and matrix algebra to create 3D computer graphics.

So teaching lessons in 3D animation is great method of teaching math, art, and a great introduction to the job skill of creating presentations.

A great introduction into common core which not only college ready but job ready. 

My Computer Science Classes Being Formed 

I am going to start the following subjects in my classes next week

Alice 2.4  a 3D Jave based Computer Programming  Site

Code,org -  computer programming

Autodesk Maya - 3D modeling 

Windows Live Video Editor

Microsoft Powerpoint

All math classes will use these software packages to work on projects and to make presentations. 

We will then watch them in our classes and evaluate how they were done and then presented too

We are currently using video for our math problems.  The students are recorded solving a problem and they can then see themselves presenting the problems